A collection of best practice articles to help grow companies with an emphasis on finance. The goal of the blog is to explain how these best practices work, enabling anyone to put these ideas to immediate use. Articles are written by Matt H. Evans, CPA, CMA, CFM

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NOTE: Effective January 1, 2017, I will no longer post new articles since I am now fully retired.

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Embracing UX Design

Growing and
maintaining a product now requires recognition of User Experience or UX Design.
Even service oriented companies should pay attention to UX Design because the
world is so digital and connected – your online presence requires great UX
design.Regrettably, many companies have
yet to embrace the concepts of UX design.

“Great products are no longer good enough to
win in business. Success and the future of business is experiential and this is
the time to learn how to create and cultivate meaningful experiences. Without
defining experiences, brands will become victim to whatever people feel and
share. In an always on world where everyone is connected to information and
also one another, customer experience is your brand.” – X: The Experience
When Design Meets Business by Brian Solis

When someone
uses your product, you want them to have a great experience. This can cover
many perspectives:

How usable is your product? You want
to make it easy for the customer to use your product. Companies may take this
for granted, thinking that everyone knows how to use the product. You should
seek out better ways on how people can use your products.

Does the customer want to buy your product?
People often want to buy a product based on intangibles such as brand
recognition, perceived value, or other emotional factors.

How easy is it for the customer to buy your
product? You want to make the buying process as easy as possible.

Does your company and product convey a
positive image? Reputations matter and if you have a bad reputation,
how can you expect the user to have a positive experience?

Because user
experience can involve so many touch points, you can jump-start your UX
commitment by referring to various UX Models. Take for example the Honeycomb Model,
developed by Peter Morville, which expands on the four elements we’ve just described:

The beauty
of a UX Model such as the Honeycomb is that it lets you set priorities around
the values that you can bring to the table. Value or Valuable is the target,
but this requires elements of Affordance and elements of Utility. Once you
master certain elements of the UX Model, you can expand to the full range of
values required. Without UX Models, creating the complete user experience can
be a guessing game. There are so many issues involved – how users interact with
the product, usability, visual aesthetics, brand recognition, technical
architecture, etc.

Another view
of UX Design comes from the well-respected designer Jesse James Garrett:

Garrett’s
model consists of “S” planes of development with each plane requiring that you
go from Concept to Concrete. Each plane above builds from the plane below,
guiding the product development process.

This article
has touched on two UX Design Models helping you start your UX Design journey. The
smartest companies such as Apple are all about user experience in their design.
This has become a critical mandate for almost every company that wants to
compete with the best companies. If you need more models, here is a recommended
article with eight UX Design Models: